Mind Games
by CDS
Summary: A hunt for a serial killer preying upon college students brings Mulder to the edge of sanity.


The characters and situations are the creations and property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions and the Fox Broadcasting Corporation and have been used without permission. No copyright infringement is intended and no money shall be made with this piece of fiction.

I can only hope that the aforementioned can find it in their hearts to forgive this fan for taking hours out from watching their show and using their tie-in products to create and showcase a not-for-profit piece of work. To them, I say...I have no money, so please don't sue me. 

Synopsis: This story was written during the Fourth Season. It's a straightforward suspense/conspiracy piece once again taking place on the campus of my alma mater (what the hell, it's not going to get famous any other way).    
  
  
  
MIND GAMES

Fall was falling, Mulder thought as he shifted positions on the park bench and looked around the small courtyard ringed by a semi-circle of academic buildings. The leaves that scrabbled across the moist cobblestones were colored and slightly curled at the edges, and the trees that sprang up around the campus were getting skeletal, their bare and semi-bare branches reaching out like talons. The air was different too. It had a slight ozone charge to it, as if a thunderstorm was perpetually a half-hour away. And the temperature, while not yet cold, had a chilly edge of dampness to it that showed itself in the early morning and late night, when the Miami Valley would roll over with mist. 

Mulder ran his fingers through his newly-cut hair, trying to get used to its shortness and the sudden vulnerability he felt around the back of his neck and ears. Students began spilling out of the building to his left--a venerable, ivy-laced edifice that most likely made the cover of the college's prospectuses and other recruitment mailings. It was, he thought, the sort of place you'd expect to have wisdom imparted, the accumulated knowledge of three millennia of Western Civilization echoing between its walls. 

The students that paraded past him displayed a certain laid-back attitude that, Mulder had read in _Newsweek,_ was the norm on campuses in the country these days. He saw a lot of sweatshirts, a lot of faded jeans, a lot of frazzled ponytails, and he suddenly felt as conspicuous in his suit and raincoat as he would if he wore a toga and clam-diggers. The young men and women pouring out of the other buildings converged with the tributary Mulder had been watching, and the idyllic little courtyard was suddenly a hive of activity and social interaction. Mulder shifted uncomfortably, but no one seemed to notice him. The days of anyone wearing a suit being regarded by the campus population as a threat, a sell-out, or The Man were dead, buried, and rotting. 

The young woman who sat down at the end of the bench was no different than any of the rest in the rapidly accumulating crowd. She wore a University of Dayton sweatshirt and pair of plaid flannel shorts with a sorority logo near the cuffs. A long expanse of tanned flesh connected the cuffs to a pair of short socks and white tennis shoes. Her chocolate-brown hair was pulled back in a pony-tail, tied off by a scrunchee, probably not washed this morning if she had classes this early. She was cute, he noticed, with dark, vaguely mysterious features offset by the very ordinary-ness of her eyes and mouth. She was a sorority chick, Mulder thought, icy, prejudicial, and self-centered. Still, she had a good bod. Maybe she could be redeemed by being bent over a table and reamed from behind. A good, violent fuck might help her to put her life in perspective. 

The coed arranged something in a folder, returned the folder to her backpack and, in a perfectly synchronized movement, slung it over her shoulder as she stood up and disappeared into the sea of uniformly-dressed students, leaving Mulder alone to contemplate the savagery of that last thought. Had a scene like that been in the movie he'd ordered up on Pay-Per-View last night? He'd fallen asleep halfway through it, but what he could remember of it was fairly standard, even banal to the true connoisseur. Maybe it was something he'd half-watched in a moment of semi-consciousness. 

Mulder looked off to his left and caught sight of Scully's gray overcoat amid the mosaic of collegic sweatshirts and occasional causal dress shirt. She cruised through them like an airliner slicing through a low cloud until she was next to the bench. Her blue-gray eyes were hardened like chips of sapphire, and her usually-downturned mouth seemed even more displeased than normal. "Can I interpret your facial expression to mean things were not particularly fruitful with Dean Wermer?" 

"His name is Shuermann," Scully said with a smart-alecky tilt of her head. "Dean Wermer was in _Animal House_. However, based on what he had to say, the maturity levels are about equal." 

"We're being blocked out by the campus police." 

Scully sat down next to him and let out an exasperated sigh. "We're being asked to suspend our investigation pending results from the investigation conducted by their fully licensed police force. He was awfully fond of that term: _fully licensed police force_. So, I guess we just sit here until the campus cops take care of things. As it is he didn't like the idea of us seizing the school's outgoing mail, so I don't think we'll be doing much in the next few days." 

"Great, we can visit the Air Force Museum. It's supposed to be impressive." 

"Mulder, this whole case has been a monumental waste of time." 

"Did we have something better to do? If I recall, you didn't seem too thrilled about investigating the spate of magpie attacks in Massachusetts." 

"Trying to track down somebody sending anti-Semitic hate mail to a radio personality isn't much better. I don't care what Skinner says about proving the veracity of the X-files office to ensure continued funding, I'm not going to be used as the Bureau's workhorse. Next thing you know we'll be enforcing the Migratory Bird Acts. Raiding the local arts and crafts shops. Confisgating homemade dream catchers. Busting people's grandmothers." 

Mulder grinned wryly. "Actually I was going to sell Skinner the 402 on the magpies by using the MBA." 

"Maybe I will visit the Air Force Museum. My dad went there a few times..." The muffled bleating of Mulder's phone stopped her. He was still getting used to its ring. It was a Motorola--his first after four Nokias--and he sometimes forgot to open it, but not this time. He looked past it to Scully. 

"I always feel like Captain Kirk when I do this." Then he flipped it open with a touch of flamboyance. 

_"Agent Mulder,"_ The voice like a summer wind through reeds was unmistakable. 

"Hello, Jane. How's Skinner treating you?" 

_"That's why I'm calling, Agent Mulder. He'd like for you to report to the Security Office of the school. He's faxing over your new assignment details right now."_

"Is there something new with the letters? Because we haven't been getting a whole lot of cooperation from the fully licensed police force that keeps this place secure." 

_"He's pulling you off the hate crimes case. There's something else. Read the file and call him."_

The line went dead, and Mulder clicked it shut. Scully was gazing at him wistfully "Should you be buying a more expensive model cell phone when they routinely end up lost, crushed, burned, shot..." 

"I found a way to write it off as an expense." Still, he was careful when he stowed in his jacket's pocket. "We're asked to report to the Security Office on campus. Looks like they found something juicier for you to sink your teeth into." 

Scully winced. "Maybe it's an illegal toga party?" 

"Hey I'm game."   


2

The Security Office was a string of cinderblocks, not dissimilar from the underclassmen dorms, that shared a building with the Health Center. The Director of Security, however, had a warm, wood-paneled office with a generous desk adorned with brass fixtures. 

"We got kind of a jurisdictional snafu, here," said John Delamer, the Director, whose elongated _a_'s betrayed the years he spent with the NYPD. "The crime occurred off campus, outside our jurisdiction, but the victim is a student and therefore we have a vested interest in the case. Your Director Skinner was the one who came up with the idea of using the two of you as a conduit to our department." 

"Why wouldn't the Dayton Police Department serve in that capacity?" Scully asked. Mulder had been wondering the same thing, but would have preferred to let Delamer talk a little bit longer. 

"We're not on the best of terms with the DPD. Nothing major, but when off-campus crime occurs, everyone from the Provost's Office to the Alumni's Association promptly chews on my ass for answers I don't have regarding an incident I can't investigate. Therefore, I chew the ass of whoever's running the investigation for the DPD. This doesn't exactly make us the best of friends, you understand? These things don't happen much--hell, if they did we could probably develop a working relationship, a protocol of some sort--but they've happened enough. With this investigation being conducted by the two of you with support from our police force, we can expect a more open, more accessible case." 

"What if the Dayton Police don't turn it over to us?" Scully asked. 

Delamer opened his hands. "They already have. The crime scene has been preserved by two of my men, the body awaiting removal." 

"Body?" Scully asked. 

"Waiting for an autopsy," Delamer nodded. "We can move it to the morgue at the medical school. Like I said, we'd like to keep this in-house."   


3

The body had been removed and the crime scene secured, ensuring that the blood and signs of a struggle were still intact. The University cops stood by the door making small talk and trying not to look at the scene, leaving Mulder to work it more or less himself. It had been a while since he'd participated in a murder investigation--murders being outside the scope of federal involvement--but he knew the motions well enough, and he was being given time and space to work. He snapped on a pair of latex gloves and dove in. 

He did a quick walk through the apartment, then sketched it out in his notepad, including doorways, furniture, and other items of interest. Then he set about trying to ascertain what had happened. The apartment was a small one-bedroom with a modest kitchen and full bathroom. Near the west wall was a reinforced plastic cabinet set that had once supported a CD player on the top shelf and assorted CDs and videotapes on the lower ones. The cabinet was pulled away from the wall, the CD player in ruins between the two of them. Mulder looked it over and tried to understand it. It certainly wasn't damaged in the break-in, and there wasn't any sign that this had been a break in. Mulder looked over the black plastic carefully with a flashlight, taking about twenty minutes until he found what he suspected he would: a dark smear on dark plastic, almost undetectable. He took a swab of it, put the swab in a glassine evidence bag, and put it all in his pocket. 

Mulder straightened up, worked the kinks out of his back, and moved into the bedroom, taking swabs of the bloodstains on the walls. The bed still bore the imprint of two bodies and the sheets and mattresses were soaked with Christina Toft's blood. Mulder took swabs there as well, then began to dust for fingerprints. The silence of the apartment was becoming oppressive. He began to hum.   


4

"So what are we dealing with, Mulder?" Scully asked when she met him for lunch that afternoon. They sat in the booth of a small diner a mile or two off campus. Between them sat generous, Midwestern-sized portions of cholesterol-laden food and various notes on their respective branches of the investigation. For her part, Scully had exercised some self-control and hadn't laid out the autopsy photos of Christina Toft's violated corpse. The waitress, she guessed, would probably object. 

"You tell me, Scully, you spent the afternoon with the victim." 

Mulder's response irked her. It was simultaneously taunting and condescending, and seemed wholly inappropriate. Unlike him. "Technically? We're dealing with a college senior who was raped and murdered. I'm talking on a professional level. Don't you find this whole reassignment strange? Has there ever been a case of FBI agents used as the personal investigators for a college police force? None that I know of." 

"It's strange," Mulder concurred, "but the ways of the bureaucracy are seldom known to mere mortals. It could be that Skinner is farming us out to keep from having to commit less...controversial agents." 

"We're being used," Scully said acidly. 

"All the more impetus to solve this and be on our way." 

"To the magpies in Massachusetts," Scully nodded, then slid an abbreviated version of her autopsy report across the desk to him. "Well, then, the victim was attacked and put up a decent struggle. Tissue was found beneath her fingernails, there were defensive cuts on her palms and forearms. Also there were abrasions and contusions about her face and neck, which would indicate that at some point he grabbed her by the throat and controlled her that way. There were horizontal striations along her midriff, indicating that she'd been forcibly bent over something--a table, a chair back, perhaps--when she was violated anally. There was minor petechial hemorrhaging in the whites of the eyes--signs of strangulation. This would indicate the killer was throttling her when he violated her the second time, vaginally, and then cut her throat." 

"The murder site was her bedroom, in her bed," Mulder nodded. "I found some traces of blood on the plastic cabinet in the living room. That's probably where he made the initial attack. There weren't any signs of forced entry, but I doubt the attacker was known to her. That cabinet was pulled away from the wall, and CD player smashed, indicating the struggle happened as soon as the guy was inside. If it was an acquaintance, he could have gotten her into the bedroom." 

"I think you're putting too much faith in the powers of male charm," Scully said dryly and then was startled to see Mulder's eyes flare dangerously. She waited for him to explode, but he didn't. His gaze went murky, and then clear and typically mischievous. He shook his head and smiled sheepishly. 

"Sorry, Scully, you lost me there for a minute. Did you get seminal samples from the victim?" 

"Yes," Scully said, still a little unnerved but working hard not to show it. "Those along with the skin beneath the nails should be enough to prove identity. Provided we get a suspect." 

"The room was filled with prints--what you'd expect from a domicile--but the cabinet didn't yield any, indicating the killer probably wore gloves." 

"So despite the physical evidence, we haven't got a thing." Scully bit into a french fry frustratedly. 

"Except thee and me," Mulder answered and sipped his soda through the striped straw. "An attack of this nature probably isn't random. The attacker had to know how to get the victim to let him into the apartment. He had to know that she lived alone. He had to know her hours. He had to know enough about her and her living conditions to be able to carry out the attack and not be seen or heard by anyone." 

"So he stalked her?" 

"Probably. Either way, it indicates that the attacker is experienced. If we run a check on the unsolved murders in area and surrounding states, we may find that he's left something at one of his previous crime scenes that we can use." 

"Worth a try," Scully said. 

They finished their murderous lunches and drove to the Dayton Field Office to run the computer check on unsolved homicides that fit the pattern of the atrocity that had occurred in the off-campus apartment. The University Police had been cooperative, affording them full use of their resources, but those resources weren't very formidable and certainly weren't capable of running a search as wide-spread as theirs would be in any reasonable amount of time. Along the way, Scully immersed herself in her autopsy report, trying to extrapolate the killer's position from the arterial spray, trying to understand why he didn't trail blood all the way out of the apartment. The radio was on, cranking out a generic pop number that didn't even tweak her consciousness until something, some random cluster of notes, caught her as tenaciously as a fish hook. 

"Mulder?" she looked up at him from her report. "Mulder what are you doing? You're _humming._" 

"I am?" He looked blank. "I didn't notice." 

"You never hum." 

"Everyone hums, Scully. I mean...the indefinable way that our minds process and store memories of music, the fact that it can evoke memories more potently than any other external stimuli, has to manifest itself in some creative outlet." 

"I've worked with you for what? Three years? I've never heard you hum." 

"Maybe you haven't been listening closely enough." 

"I recognized the song, but I can't think of what it is. It's on the tip of my brain..." 

"I can't help you, Scully, my thoughts were elsewhere." 

"Damn," Scully turned her attention back to the autopsy report. "This is going to bother me all day."   


5

They split their responsibilities once again, with Scully running the computer checks, and Mulder questioning what few witnesses they could find. For Mulder it was a depressing, yet enlightening task, as a clearer picture of the young woman was formed. Christina Toft was a nutrition major with only a handful of friends, no known boyfriend, and few close confidants. She seemed to be an introverted young woman, slightly distant, though not aloof. She'd moved off campus rather than live in one of the University-owned houses in part because she hadn't been able to produce the requisite number of people to enter the selection pool, but also, her friends said, because she preferred living alone. 

She had been a pretty girl before her attacker had raked the serrated edge of what was most likely a wilderness survival knife along her throat from one corner of her jaw to the other, then down the center of her neck, slicing deeply enough to chip the bones of her vertebra. She'd had tawny, slightly wild hair that was naturally curly and fell in haphazard fashion over her hair and the small of her back. Her skin was tanned but healthy, with no traces of scars or acne. Her eyes had a been the color of an aloe plant. Mulder had found a picture tucked in the frame of a bedroom mirror, a shot of Christina Toft posing with two of the friends that Mulder had questioned. For reasons he still didn't understand, he'd taken the picture with him and now glanced at it every so often, Christina's smiling visage seeming to reach out to him from the photo, filling him with urgency and familiarity. 

He sat in his hotel room, staring at that picture and drinking a homemade screwdriver. The sun's slow descent had been obscured by the formation of dense, rain-filled clouds, and the small reading lamp beside the bed was casting the only light. 

He thought about Christina Toft. Why didn't she have a boyfriend? She was attractive enough not to have to sleep alone if she didn't want to. And women never wanted to, he knew. They always needed companionship, always needed a man and then bitched about how rotten they were to them. Were Christina Toft's standards too high? Did her expectations of perfection take precedence over her physical and sexual needs? Mulder's thoughts rambled off course. He was contemplating the feel of her flesh, the warmth of her body when the knock shook him out of his stupor. He put the picture in his pocket and crossed the room. 

"Were you asleep?" Scully asked, looking around the dimly-lit room. 

"No," Mulder answered. "I was...I was just...looking some things over." Self-consciously, he turned on the lights. 

"I thought you might want to get some dinner. There's an Olive Garden down the highway a mile or two, and I could stand some Italian right now." 

"Yeah, yeah, sure," Mulder nodded. "Let me just get my coat." 

They ate the heavy Italian meal while conversing about everything but the dead girl who was currently pulling their strings. They talked about her godson's eighth birthday party, the night school courses her mother was taking, and the current unwieldy procedure concerning the circulation of inter-Bureau paperwork. Throughout the conversation, Scully thought she noticed Mulder's attention slip elsewhere. She wondered if he was sleeping enough. Insomnia was the bane of his existence. She'd pleaded with him to see a doctor, but to the best of her knowledge he never had. 

"Did you want to have anything for dessert?" asked the tall, cute waitress. Mulder smiled at her and declined. 

"I think there's a sizable tip in her future," Scully said archly. "Pretty girls get all the breaks." 

"A pretty girl," Mulder said, "can go anywhere. All doors are open to her." 

"Is that your way of saying that the world is an unfair place?" 

"I guess so." 

6

The rain-heavy clouds rolled in and broke about midnight in a steady downpour that made a noise against the asphalt of the motel's parking lot like the distant shouting of a crowd. Mulder lay on his bed, naked except for a pair of black and violet striped boxer shorts, idly flipping through the channels on the TV, searching for something to take his mind off the tanned, green-eyed girl whose voice he would never hear, whose hair he would never smell. He settled on the Pay-Per-View channel showing _Blonde Justice 4_. Porn superstar Janine, of the long blonde hair and a chest whose shape and firmness warranted an X-file of its own, starred as a stripper being stalked by a murderous fan. The cheap opening credits began over a slow-mo of Janine dressed as a cowgirl, gyrating against a pole. 

His room's phone rang. Mulder stared at it a moment, then picked up. 

_"Mulder,"_ Scully's voice, _"we should check the University records tomorrow, and see if there were any complaints of voyeurs or intruders or trespassers in the past few months."_

"I thought of that, too. If Christina was killed between midnight and five in the morning, no one posing as an authority figure or an official of any sort could have gotten in. We must be dealing with an intruder. Someone with B&E experience." 

_"I'm still amazed that we didn't find any similar crimes in the area."_

"This doesn't have the look of a first-timer, Scully. We'll have start going backward. Not every serial killer works off an urgent timetable. Most have down periods of months, sometimes years, between killings." 

_"We're going to have a busy day tomorrow. It makes me wonder why we're staying up talking."_

"Me, too." 

_"All right, I'll see you tomorrow. Good night, Mulder."_

"'Night Dana." He hung up and returned his attention to the screen. Janine and Tori Welles were going down on one another in what was, presumably, the stripclub's dressing room. "I get the blonde part," Mulder said to no one, "but I'm still waiting for the justice to come into play, here." 

It finally arrived in the form of an undercover cop who began their working relationship together by taking her in the squadroom with a couple of her male partners. Satisfied at last with the title, Mulder fell asleep.   


7

_Rain._

_Ceaseless, pounding. It sounded like laughter, like ridicule. It filled him with hate and purpose and made him clench his teeth against the knife even harder. The hardness of the 440 steel and the heavy blade, five-sixteenths of an inch thick. The serrated edge was in his mouth and every so often he ran his tongue across it to enjoy the pain. Enjoy imagining what it must feel like raking across a gullet._

_The main airshaft was more than a yard wide and a foot and a half high, making it easy for him to crawl through. The constant flow of air over him would dry his clothes--he'd disposed of the mud-soaked galoshes in the trash compactor downstairs. If this complex was the same as the one in Newark, he'd be dry enough not to leave any trace behind._

_He had been counting off the numbers of the branches of the vent that he passed. B17 was hers, and he reached it in ten minutes. The branch was far to narrow for him to wriggle down, but he didn't plan to do that, anyway. Instead, he pulled the knife out of his mouth, clenched it in his fist, and stabbed through the thin metal of the vent. Using the serrated edge of the blade, he sawed an oblong hole big enough to fit his body through. The sound of the sharpened steel raking through the thin aluminum was loud, but not loud enough to drown out the sound of the stereo in the suite above him. He did not know who the resident was there, but they played New Wave music very loudly from eight PM through one AM. The sounds of Spacehog covered the noise he made. It even covered the sound of him punching out the oval._

_He lay spreadeagled atop the rafters, beneath which were the acoustic tiles that formed the ceiling's of the residence hall's bedrooms. He reached the one foot distance between the rafters and tiles and speared one with the tip of the knife and ever so gently lifted the tile out of place. He shone his penlight down through the empty square, and saw the form nestled beneath the cover in her bed. Her eyes shut as she concentrated on the music coming through her headphones._

_Just as he knew she did._

_He landed softly beside the bed, straightened up in time to see her roll over and open her eyes. His left hand shot out, covered her mouth, the leather of the glove suppressing her scream, then he pressed the knife to her throat and stood at his full height above her..._   


8

...Mulder twisted wickedly in the bed, one hand sweeping to knock the blade from his throat, while the other searched for the hand that was clamped over his mouth. He met with no resistance, nearly rolling out of the bed. He sat upright in the bed, looking around the dark room, gasping for breath. He reached out, felt the roughness of his slacks and slid into them. He needed a walk. Something to kill off excess energy. He slid his bare feet into his loafers and then noticed the sliver of light that lay across the blackened floor. 

The door was ajar. 

Mulder's heart slammed in his chest. He yanked the Smith&Wesson out of its chamois holster and bolted into the hallway. He heard footsteps, then the back door slamming shut. Mulder ran down the hallway, exploding through the partially-closed back door. The rain was still pouring and he felt an icy chill cover him as he splashed through the puddles in the uneven places in the asphalt. 

The parking lot's lights shone an indistinct amber which was reflected off the slick asphalt and falling raindrops, making it hard to see details. A car rumbled in the near distance, and Mulder drew a bead. 

A sloshing drew his attention in the opposite direction. Someone was disappearing off the edge of the parking lot and into the muddy, empty lot behind the motel. Mulder took a few steps, sighting down the pistol, now glowing amber beneath the lights. 

A warning shot... 

"This'll be over soon enough," Mulder said breathlessly, then felt his temple implode in agony, forcing him to his knees. 

_"Now, baby, the hard part's over...just lay back..."_

_He saw the flash, felt the flesh yield, the bone crunch. Blood sprayed..._

_It was amber._

_"Mulder!"_

_The voice made him spin away from the girl's bleeding body, Scully stood in the doorway, looking at him in horror..._

"Mulder?" 

He looked at his hands. They were clean. The pain was fading in his temple, but the image was not. 

"Mulder?" Scully stood above him in her overcoat, droplets of amber water clinging to the ends of her hair. 

"Scully," he managed, "there's been another one."   


9

"What I'm asking is _how_ you know that someone else has been murdered," Scully asked over the combined noises of the car, the rain splatting on the windshield, and the drone of the wipers. 

"Don't ask me that, I..." Mulder's hand went to the waist of his jeans and adjusted the holster ruefully. 

"Mulder, you have to understand how this looks from my point of view. I wake up to hear you running through the halls of a hotel, then find you half-dressed in the parking lot, your weapon drawn, doubled over in the pouring rain." 

"Someone was in my room," Mulder protested. "I woke up when they tried to strangle me and chased them outside. Then I lost them." 

"That still doesn't tell me how you came to this conclusion..." 

"_I just did! I just know it!"_

Scully stared at him, shocked into silence, then returned her attention to the road. They were snaking down the driveway that ran from the upper east end of the campus past the freshman dorms, down past the more stately upperclassman suites which lined the path like a row of uneven, shark's teeth. Red and blue flashing lights grabbed Scully's attention before they could even make out what was happening. She nosed the car up to the campus police car which was parked lengthwise across the road. Scully looked over at Mulder. "Well, something's happened here, that's for sure." She rolled to a halt a few feet away from the blockading cruiser and piled out a second behind Mulder who was flailing into his LL Bean coat. 

"Who the hell called you?" Delamer's accented voice called above the thumping rain and screeching of the cars' radios. Scully squinted through the fat raindrops at Delamer, who sat in the rear doorway of a patrol car to allow the top half of him to escape the rain. 

"What?" Scully tried to make sense of what he said. 

"What's going on?" Mulder demanded. 

"Is the DPD in on this? Are they monitoring our goddamned frequencies?" 

"We haven't talked to the Dayton police," Scully answered. 

"Well, then, your timing's impeccable." Delamer slid out of the back seat and into the full fury of the rain. He gestured to the Kettering Hall suites. "We got a dead girl up there."   


10

"He's ambitious," Scully said beneath her breath. She stood beside him in the suite's bedroom, now a mess of crimson painted slashes. Mulder barely heard her. He was trying to take in the scene--inhale it like the smoke from a good cigar, which he could hold in his lungs until it made its way to his brain. 

The room was typical of a college sophomore--almost stereotypical. The walls were covered with art prints and Wyland posters portraying majestic sea creatures. There was a small desk beside the bed, cluttered with pens and textbooks and encrusted with pictures. The sheets, currently ruined, were an elegant shade of peach and had a frilly hem. The comforter which was now a red, drying mess piled at the foot of the bed was a mass of ruffles. 

"And her roommate was home?" Mulder asked quietly. 

"Watching TV in the other room," Scully said crisply. "Is the window locked?" Mulder walked numbly over to it and gazed at it. 

"Latched from the inside. I doubt our UNSUB could climb the walls anyway." He turned away from the window and walked over to the bed. "Unless he's Spider-Man." 

"Or Eugene Tooms," Scully said hollowly. 

"Tooms is dead, Scully," Mulder said bluntly. He was barely aware of what she was saying. The body called to him, its scent cutting through everything else. She had probably been an exotic girl, Mulder noticed as he looked over the deep slashes in her throat. Side to side, deep and down. 

"We...we don't know that he was the only one, Mulder...To believe that he was the only being of his kind is...is...is naive. It's entirely possible that..." 

"Tooms ate livers," Mulder answered distantly. He was recording the woman's thick, black, ringleted hair; her ice-blue eyes; her alabaster flesh, and purple lips. Her features--the features of her naked body--were being caught by disparate sections of his mind, touching off random recognitions, but unable to coalesce into an identifiable memory. Had he seen her this morning (_yesterday_ morning, the girl's nightstand clock reminded him) when he'd found himself in a sea of nubile, collegic flesh? Did she remind him of some woman he'd known long ago? At Oxford, maybe? Before that? 

"We don't know that that was a physical or biological imperative..." 

Mulder let her babble on. He inhaled the woman's scent: a mixture of soap and shampoo and sex. He remembered pressing his face to nape of her neck and sucking in deeply. Pain shot through his temple, his legs went weak, but he didn't go down. He took a deep breath through his mouth, clamped his eyes shut, rolled his head back on his neck and looked to the ceiling. 

And then he knew. 

Scully: "Skinner and that other one were obviously covering up something. Now I doubt that they would go to such extremes for only one such..." 

The chair was off-kilter beneath the desk. Mulder reached out with one gloved hand and pulled it over. 

"Mulder, what..." 

He stepped onto it, having to hunch his shoulders since he was about two feet too tall for ceiling clearance. He pulled his mini-Masterlight from the inside pocket of his coat, twisted it into brightness, then pushed his way past the acoustic-tile ceiling. The bright beam glittered past dust and insulation particles, illuminating the beams and wiring that suspended the ceiling, finally reflecting off the wide, long ventilation shaft. He ran the beam over the shaft slowly and lovingly, like caressing a woman's bare midriff, until it disappeared into the jagged, oval, hole about three feet away from him. 

"What is it?" Scully's voice nagged him. 

"How he c-came in," Mulder said, excitedly, crouching out from the ceiling. 

"How?" Scully looked at him, genuinely befuddled. 

"Ventilation shaft," Mulder said. "There must be a main branch for every level coming off of the furnace. Tell Delamer to get his men to the boiler room, and set up guards near the exits." He hopped off the chair and stowed the flashlight. 

"Do you think he's still here?" 

"No, but it'll give him something to do."   


11

"You never told me how you knew," Scully persisted as Mulder paced the tiny motel room, staring at the two pictures of the two dead women, both snatched from happier moments of their lives. 

"I think we've got enough for a profile. Did you send that chunk of the pipe to Toolmarks and Firearms?" 

"Yes, Mulder, but...would you answer the question?" She grabbed his coat sleeve and pulled him around to face her. He blinked a few times, then caught her question. 

"I don't know, Scully. A dream, I guess." 

"A dream?" Scully's eyes narrowed. "A premonition? Is that what you're telling me?" 

"I don't know," he said again. The lameness of his replies were getting to him. 

"That's crazy, Mulder. I don't believe you'd buy into something like that." 

"I don't, uh...I can't explain it, Scully. I just got us there, didn't I?" 

"Mulder, we've got to explain this in a report. We've got to account for this seeming leap of intuition. How do you propose to do that?"' 

Mulder gritted his teeth, imagined them clamping down on a knife blade and tasting steel. 

"I just don't know."   


12

Psychological Profile: UNSUB #312 

Case Agent: Dana Scully 

Badge No.: JTT932177650 

Behavioral Science Agent of Record: SA Fox Mulder 

Badge No.: JTT047101111   


The patterns of this UNSUB would conform to what is referred to as a "neat killer" in that his attacks are carefully planned in advance, as exhibited by his use of public and semi-public places for the sites of his attacks. Since access to these places is either restricted or noticeable, the killer has obviously thoroughly staked out those areas and familiarized himself with their nuances.   


I believe our UNSUB is a white male, between twenty-five and forty years of age, and probably of medium or slightly-above medium build. All of his victims have been white, and crimes of this nature seldom cross racial lines, and there has never been a female serial killer. My estimation of his age comes from the patience and meticulousness required for the commission of his crimes. As a general rule, the younger a subject is, the more impulsive and "messy" his crimes. Since brute force seems not to be a factor in these cases, our UNSUB most likely doesn't feel the need to maintain a rigorous regiment of body-building. The first victim exhibited defensive wounds on his hands which would not be present had the killer the physical strength to instantly subdue her or incapacitate her without a weapon.   


Our UNSUB is of medium intelligence--most likely possessing a 120-155 IQ. He has most likely held blue collar jobs, most likely construction work, as evidenced by his adeptness at familiarizing himself with building plans and layouts in a small amount of time. He is quite technical and right-brained--inclined to thinking in precise terms, but not necessarily ruled by them. His background may contain police and/or military training, explaining his proficiency with edged weapons. He is most likely a stutterer and/or possessed of a physical deformity which could be as major as a livid facial scar or as minor as the aftereffects of teen acne. It also most likely includes a history of cruelty to animals and possibly other killings not fitting this pattern. Based upon his efficiency, these are clearly not his first kills.   


Unlike many serial killers, this one won't try to insinuate himself into the investigation as a witness or bystander. He will not be a part of the crowd that assembles at the newly-discovered crime scene, since this is an act of personal fulfillment. He has nothing to prove to the world. The sexual nature of his attacks show that he is attempting to assert power over a certain group of people (ie: women). The stuttering and physical deformity most likely led to his being ridiculed as a small child and sexually and romantically spurned in his teen and later years. His attacks on women, the intensely sexual nature of the crimes, and the blatant debasement and violation indicate that he is venting the frustration and humiliation of those years toward the ultimate example of female perfection: attractive, college students. The fury of his attack in the midst of a meticulously planned attack indicates that the UNSUB is able to control, at least to this degree, his impulses.   


13

_He dreams and sees the girl, sees her baby-blue eyes glaze over with pain as he rams himself into her. She tries to scream, but the heel of his hand is wedged in her mouth. She tries to bite him, but her teeth barely exert pressure through the leather glove. It is the only resistance she puts up. The knife nips her throat, already raising a thin, red line on her white, white skin. Her arms flop uselessly at her sides, her purple-painted nails occasionally digging into the sheets, but that is all. His jeans are open and riding low on his hips, his testicles swing with each thrust, free and vulnerable. The whore is too stupid to try and fight back. A well-placed blow would send him to the floor in agony, curled in an unravelable fetal ball, but she does nothing. She is stupid, weak, and reliant upon her looks for her edge in life. She had a pretty face, big tits, and a sweet, round ass to wiggle to get her way, but now that is to avail. She has probably made a life of choosing precisely which men she allows into her cunt, tormenting and ridiculing the rest. Now, she has no defenses in the face of real power. He believes, somewhere in her cold little heart of hearts, she's enjoying this fuck. Music accompanies his actions:_

_A pretty girl/_

_A pretty girl can go anywhere/_

_All doors open to her..._

_Or so she believed, but not anymore. When he comes, he grunts past gritted teeth, so the roommate watching television in the other room won't hear, he lets the final consummation of power rush through him, take charge of his limbs, and sweep the blade deep across her throat. Blood leaps like an animal, touches his face with a warm caress. He tastes its saltiness on his lips and delivers the second cut._

_He wipes his face and straightens up. Slides himself into his jeans and fastens them. He collects his badge and gun from the nightstand just in time, as Scully and Delamer and a phalanx of cops burst through the door, weapons drawn. His own gun is drawn. He gestures with it to the ceiling. "He went through there."_

_"How did you know he'd be here?" Scully asked._

_"I just knew," he answers as the cops run off in all directions._   


14

Scully watched the torrid movie through its conclusion, feeling vaguely sickened by the simulated sex. She wondered how long it would take after the conclusion of this case for the notion of sex not be associated with violence. On screen, the pale-skinned, black-haired, green-eyed lovely was taunting a suitor with her sheer negligee. Scully bitterly stabbed at the remote.

But didn't quite change the channel. The woman's familiarity yanked her sidelong into another place. An assistance case as a cadet...

The woman, the bad girl from that twisted TV show...

The movie she was in with the end theme song...

_Man With a Gun_ by Jerry Harrison, and David Setzer who'd left the song playing on the stereo systems of his victims. Her first consult as a coroner with the FBI, and they made her memorize the song.

_Pretty girl, young man, old man..._

_Man with a gun..._

It was the song Mulder had been humming in the car.

Scully leapt out of bed and turned on her laptop. She took a few minutes to access to Federal Correctional Community Database, entered the name and waited.

Then Mulder screamed.   


15

Scully keyed through the adjoining doorway and slapped for the light switch. The room lit up with the pale light of the cheap motel lamps. She looked around, zoomed in on the empty bed, then found Mulder curled up on the floor, trembling.

"Mulder," she whispered and rushed to his side. He was cold, his eyes only barely focusing.

"S-Scully," he managed, glancing over to her, trying to lock on her image as frantically as a man scrabbling for a handhold the moment before he plummets down the side of a mountain.

"Mulder! Mulder, my God! What is it? What's wrong?"

"Sc-Scully," he gasped. "G-God, my head-d..." His shaking began to subside. "Dreams."

"What kind of dreams, Mulder? Mulder what were you dreaming about?"

"Him, Scully. I was him. I was in his head. I..." his features screwed up in agony and gasped.

"Mulder? _Mulder!_" She shook him by the shoulders. He lashed out, throwing her backward. "What are you _doing?_"

_"Don't use that fucking tone with me!"_ He threw her by the shoulders into the wall. Scully felt a bruise rise on her cheek and saw the hotel fade into blurriness. She felt Mulder's body pin her to the wall.

_"Mulder?"_ She felt him drift away, took the opportunity to spin around and saw him staggering backward and finally slump onto the bed.

"Scully?" he asked dazedly. "Scully, what did I just do? Why am I doing..."

The door exploded off its' hinges, swinging violently inwardly. Scully saw a blur of blue uniforms and automatic weapons.

_"Freeze, police! Get on the floor! Get on the floor! Get on the floor!"_

Scully backed away, stunned, as the SWAT team members threw Mulder to the floor and trained the muzzles of their M-16s on his back.

_"What are you doing?"_ Scully demanded.

A stocky, barrel of a man swung his contemptuous gaze from Mulder to her. "Arresting one perverted piece of shit."   


16

Excerpt: Q&A with alleged rapist/murderer Fox Mulder, 10/03/96...   


Detective Meeks: Where were you at approximately eleven-thirteen last evening?   


Mulder: I want my lawyer.   


Detective Sergeant Griffin: We're all lawdogs here, Agent Mulder, let's handle things between us, okay?   


Mulder: I want my lawyer.

Meeks: What's the matter, _Agent_ Mulder? You don't kick around enough bad guys in the FB of I, you gotta rape women and then cut them up? Or is your dick so small that's what you gotta do to make yourself feel like a man?   


Mulder: I want a lawyer.   


Griffin: All right, Agent Mulder, but this is your last chance to handle things off the books...   


Mulder: I want my goddamned lawyer.

Meeks: Now the big, bad, FBI man is getting all pissed off. What? Having trouble intimidating somebody stronger than a college freshman? Maybe you want to me to step into the tank with you, we can see what you're malfunction is?   


Mulder: Great, then the winner gets to date Veronica Lake. While you're handing out the tough-guy routine, you might want to think about the Miranda-Escobedo case which explicitly states that the moment I request a lawyer, all interrogation by law-enforcement officers stops and doesn't resume until the lawyer shows up. And I want my lawyer.   


Griffin: All right, Agent Mulder. Make this difficult.   


Meeks: And have a good time in the holding cell.   


17

Scully drove the car in tense silence, allowing only an occasional glance at the man in the passenger's seat whose scowling face was patterned over by the lights of the dashboard. She had never seen Assistant Director Skinner happy. She had never seen him crack a smile any wider than a cold smirk, and hadn't even seen that happen very often. Skinner seemed to exist in two modes: cold interest and cold fury. The way he stared unwaveringly out the windshield, Scully knew that he had fast moved into the domain of the former mode and was on the verge of creating a new one.

"Sir," she said levelly, trying to sound convincing enough to hold back the force of what was coming, "you can't believe that Mulder attacked these women. You know him better than that. besides which, the window of opportunity..."

"What's the evidence they have on Mulder?" Skinner cut her off matter-of-factly.

Scully inhaled. "The secretions left in the victims yield type an A-positive blood type. Mulder's blood type. He had photos and mementos of the victims in his motel room. As you know, sir, that's not atypical behavior for serial murders with a sexual bend."

Even Skinner's nod was controlled. "One of the cops read a textbook."

"Also, sir..." Scully hesitated, but this was, after all, Skinner who sat beside her. "Sir, he had what would appear to be...advance knowledge of the crimes."

"Advance knowledge? What kind of advance knowledge?"

"We arrived at one of the crime scenes within minutes of the discovery of the body. We hadn't yet been contacted by the University police."

"Then how did..."

"Sir, Agent Mulder had been behaving erratically at the time. He...I can't quite understand his thought-process..."

"Who can?" Skinner grunted. It was as close to humor as Scully had heard him venture.

"He seemed to believe he saw it in a dream or as a part of a...vision." The last word fell flat, and they drove in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes.

"This wouldn't be the first time that Agent Mulder skirted the edge," Skinner said hollowly. "The John Mostow case came near putting him in the padded cell next to Bill Patterson's. Actually, I think if it wasn't for your presence as a touchstone, he'd be there now, sharing crayons and drawing gargoyles."

Scully absorbed the compliment without comment, trying not get sidetracked. "This time, it was different. There was something positively...supernatural about it."

Skinner's knife-blade eyes fixed on her right profile. "Supernatural? Coming from you, that scares me, Agent Scully."

She decided to try a different direction. "Sir, this whole case seems wildly improper. The fact that we were attached to an investigation run by a campus police force. That we were conducting an investigation in the first place, rather than supporting it as the FBI is supposed to. And the fact that we were assigned to investigate a seemingly unimportant crime that just happened to be centered in the place that would become the scene for two brutal slayings..." Scully took a moment to organize her thoughts. "Sir, it just seems wildly coincidental."

Skinner nodded slightly, almost imperceptibly. "The assignment didn't originate from my office." Scully wondered if it was guilt she heard in his voice. Or the closest thing to it.   


18

"You'll have to excuse the hospitality," the younger detective said. He was smooth-skinned and brush-cut and reminded Skinner of the lieutenants that had marched his platoon into various bloodbaths around the Ia Drang valley: kids too stupid even to realize how little they knew until reality whacked them upside the head with a baseball bat. Or in the case of Vietnam, a Bouncing Betty.

And in this case, the ire of the Assistant Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Mulder was in a squatting/standing position, his legs having lost most of their strength, but still being held up by two of the guards who were working him over.

The older, greyer detective looked at the ground and slapped a hand over his face as if unable to face the impending unraveling of his law enforcement career.

"What do you people think you're doing?" Skinner said quietly.

"Hey," said the guard standing in front of Mulder, his knuckles pink with the blood leaking out of Mulder's nose and lips, "this little asshole liked working over girls. We're giving him a real workout. You got a problem with that?"

The older detective retreated a few steps. "I'll just be out back, eating my gun..."

"Now, I know this ain't how you refined supercops do things in the FB of I, but..." And in the kid's clear, blue, scornful and sadistic gaze Skinner saw the rudamentry thought processes of every LT who'd ever torched a 'ville or lobbed a willy-pete into a tunnel. Skinner put his hand on the man's throat and lifted, forcing the young detective's head back just enough to be uncomfortable.

"Let me explain something to you, _Detective_. What is happening to my agent in your holding cell violates so many rules, written and unwritten, that by the time we get through prosecuting you for all of them you'll be getting more time than the guy who really is killing those girls. So here's what you're going to do: you're going to call off your Neanderthals, you're going to patch Agent Mulder up, and then you are going to release him to my custody. This way I won't have to arrest you and them for violating his Civil Rights, he won't have to sue you for damages and pain and suffering, and you won't spend the better part of a month in physical therapy after I take you outside and beat the living shit out of you."

The bulls in the cell eyed Skinner narrowly, trying to decide if he was sincere or not. One convinced easily and backed off. The other two looked to be formulating snappy, tough-guy responses. Skinner decided a further gesture of intent was in order. "You men are assaulting a federal agent. I'll have to ask you to cease and desist." He drew his gun and cocked the hammer. "Now."

It took the bulls the same amount of time to glance at the gun and at his expression above it as it did for them to decide on his sincerity. They backed off cagily, leaving Mulder to fall forward and catch himself on the bars. He smiled with bloody lips and croaked, "Attica."

Skinner holstered his pistol. "I wouldn't joke about that, Agent Mulder."   


19

"So what's the working theory at the Bureau? Spooky spent too much time chasing little green men that he started attacking coeds?" Mulder asked. He and Skinner were in an empty office which still smelled of the antiseptic and gauze that Scully--being the closest thing to a nurse on the premises--had used on him. He hadn't suffered any lacerations, but the left side of his face was marbled with bruises.

"I've kept this away from anyone else in the Bureau for now," he said. "What happened?"

Mulder fingered the tender flesh around his eye socket. "Weren't you listening to Leo Buscaglia in there? I like raping and murdering coeds."

"Cut the crap, Mulder. I confided in you about my Vietnam experience. The woman who followed me. I also went to bat for you for more times than anyone would consider prudent. I took a bullet in the guts because of your little adventures, so don't pull this silent treatment shit on me."

The buzzing that had started in Mulder's forehead when he'd first been slugged was dimming to a hum behind his eyes. He pressed on the bridge of his nose, heard the buzzing change frequencies, then gave up. "I can see the crimes happening. They're there when I go to sleep. I see the victims, the crime scene, the crime take place. I know where to look for points of entry, for forensic clues, I know how he did it."

Skinner looked puzzled. "Are you telling me you're some kind of...clairvoyant?"

Mulder shook his head. "Clairvoyants--ones who're reputable--pick up on details, on places, on geographic landmarks. Very few pick up on the emotional state of either the victim or the perpetrator. That's what's happening to me. I'm not just seeing the crime scene, I'm watching it happen through his eyes. I am the one committing the crime. I see it happen. I..._feel_ it happen...I feel what the killer is feeling. I understand his rage. I...I am the killer. The emotions, the attitudes of the man we're after have rubbed off on me. They leave a residue."

"Agent Scully said you've been stuttering," Skinner affirmed. "That's an aspect you included in your profile."

"My sleeping habits have been irregular--I'm sleeping more often than I usually do. I'm having...uncharacteristic violent urges."

"Do you feel you're a danger, Agent Mulder? To society? To yourself? To Scully?"

"I don't know," Mulder said quietly.

Skinner began pacing the room, changing gears, Mulder saw, from interpersonal mode to criminal investigator mode. "They don't have any evidence compelling enough to keep you here. The blood typing is common enough for half the campus to have it, and your knowledge of where the crime scenes were before they contacted you is somewhat less than compelling. The DNA comparisons won't be ready for at least another two days..." He paused and straightened his wire-rimmed glasses, an anachronistically intelligent garnish on an otherwise hard and dangerous face. "We have two days to find the real killer."

"You're that convinced I'm a possible suspect?" Mulder said, feeling his heart sink slightly.

"Not for a second," Skinner brushed him off. "But in two days someone's going to have to make a decision regarding you. I'm not sure you'll like either of the outcomes."

Mulder felt his hackles rise. "What do you mean?"

"I mean confidential memos aren't always confidential."

Mulder was about to ask what _that_ meant when Scully burst in, leaving a wake of air behind her that scattered papers and swayed the leaves of the fake plants that flanked the doorway.

"Jacob Setzer can't be found," Scully announced in answer to an unasked question.

"Setzer?" Mulder squinted past the buzzing until he unearthed a memory. "We helped arrest him, didn't we? The ISU did a profile when he was killing women in Minnesota..." Mulder felt his stomach turn to ice. "He was killing them the same way these women..."

"The only difference was the song he'd leave playing on the sound system," Scully said. "Jerry Harrison's _Man With a Gun._ That's how they eventually caught him--by canvassing the record stores. Mulder, you've been humming ever since we started this case."

"I've never heard the song," Mulder protested. "How could I possibly be humming it?"

"Remember the other day in the diner when you said that a pretty girl could go anywhere? All doors open to her?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Those are lines from the song."

Mulder felt the buzzing intensify. He felt as if the world as being rewritten with reality undergoing just the slightest text change, allowing much of it to remain normal, but keeping it off-kilter enough to prevent him being able to operate normally.

"When I put it together," Scully continued, "I got online with the FCCD, trying to find some sort of status report on Setzer. The most recent report I've gotten was from six months ago. Everything else about the man ends in a bureaucratic snarl one week ago."

"Are you saying he might have been released?" Mulder asked, shocked.

"Not exactly," Skinner answered. He pulled up a chair and sat down.   


20

_He has watched the bitch for several days now. He knows her schedule, her social circles, her classes, and her body as well he can without getting to touch it, play with it, drive it into the ground. He's watched her at night, too. He knows that she wears a nightshirt and clean panties to bed. That she keeps something secret beneath her pillow. That she sometimes touches herself pensively before sleeping._

_Soon he'll know everything about her._

_He. Mulder._

_The back entrance of the dorm locks automatically, but it's an easy lock. Trickier is the video camera trained on it. They will not be watching the screen, though. The people working the front desk pay only passing attention to it. He shaving creams it without exposing his face, so the tape won't pick it up. If the blackout on the monitor alerts them, they won't be able to search the entire building. Not before he makes it to the roof._

_He wears a Campus Ministry T-shirt, which deflects attention from his presence and his age. It is late. He walks all the way to her door without being seen. College dorm deadbolts are a joke. He picks his way in, slithers through the barest opening, sees her delicious form beneath the sheets._

_His hand touches the knife as he towers above her..._   


21

Mulder's hand flicked up hard enough to knock the syringe out of the man's grasp. His other hand grabbed for the man's throat. In the darkened room, he couldn't see details, but felt them beneath his fingers.

_"Shit! Help me with him!"_ the man hissed. _"Cover the bitch!"_

Mulder heard Scully's chair thump as she came awake. Then he heard a gun being cocked.

The room exploded in an orange strobe that illuminated, for a fraction of a section, the balding, skinny man he was struggling with; the huskier man covering Scully, now twisting in agony as his gunarm came apart; Skinner holding his discharging pistol in a professional two-handed grip.

_"Jesus! I..."_

The lights came on, blindingly bright. Mulder twisted upright, wresting the thinner, balding man to the bed. He didn't pay attention to the rest of the room: to Skinner covering the bleeding man while Scully secured his dropped pistol.

"What did you do to me?" he demanded through clenched teeth. The man's face turned blue above Mulder's tightening fist, and he thrashed his skinny body frantically like an eel plucked from the sea and dumped on the hard, dry deck of a fishing boat.

_"Answer me, damn you!"_ Mulder leaned forward, crushing the man into the mattress.

"I..." the man croaked, then gagged, his lips wetting with spit. "You have..."

"You've got a killer in your head," the man on the floor said slowly. Mulder looked over at him and saw immediately the machine that had stamped him out. He was a blocky, solid slab of muscle and sinew with a sidearm and without a sense of morality. Skinner had only winged him, but he hadn't let the man off easily. The bullet hadn't simply punched through the flesh and muscle leaving a neat, round hole that would close and heal with a minimum of surgery and physical therapy, but had nailed him in the shoulder where the bones of the humerus, clavicle, and scapula would stop it and ricochet it between them like a pinball, rending tissue and destroying nerve clusters until it finally burst out of the side of his arm. The man attached to the wound was sweaty and heavy-lidded with shock.

"What?" Scully demanded. "What do you mean?"

He slumped over to face Mulder, "They stuck a mixer in your head and put it on full." Then he broke off laughing an airy, wisp of a laugh that skirted the border of consciousness.

"Project Linkage," Skinner snarled. "The memo that came over my desk seven months ago proposing high-intensity psychological conditioning for certain law-enforcement agents to track down serial killers and other violent offenders? The one that named Setzer as a...let me see if I remember this right...'optimal candidate for study?'" The toe of Skinner's shoe pressed into the matted, bloody patch on the man's jacket, causing him to writhe, gasp, and lose consciousness. Skinner turned his attention to the man Mulder was throttling. "You care to answer?"

He craned his thin neck and blustered, "I don't see what you're talking about has to do with..."

"Don't even think of selling me that pile," Skinner snapped. "You think I haven't worked this job long enough to know what's going on between the lines? You think I haven't seen enough secrets being buried--enough cover stories being concocted--not to be able to read through your flimsy lies? This had nothing to do with Setzer as a model. You let him go. Then you trained Mulder to find him."

"He was expendable," Scully said slowly and with realization. "If the operation went wrong, and Mulder was psychologically damaged...it'd work to your advantage."

Mulder felt the world shudder around him. He saw the dorm and the woman's body beneath the sheets. "What're you injecting me with?" he hissed, then pulled the syringe out of the man's limp hand.

"Just a little...cocktail. Some sodium amytol, dopamine, a little LSD, certain psychotropic pharmaceutical...Just enough to tap into the subliminal thought patterns we planted in your subconsciousness."

"Planted?" Scully asked. "How?"

He saw the curl of the shaving cream as it blotted out the video camera. "We don't have time for this," Mulder said frantically, sliding out of the bed, dragging the man with him. "He's here...he's going after his next victim."

"We have to call the..."

"They wouldn't listen to us," Skinner said solidly, then pulled out his handcuffs. "Let's make sure they don't go anywhere."   


22

"Oh God! Something's happened! I heard a scream and..." Mulder clasped the freshman's shoulders and moved her aside. When she protested, he showed her his badge.

"FBI. When did you hear the scream?"

"I think..." she burst into tears. Other students were slowly closing in: limp-haired, sleep-eyed college women. Targets. Scully pounded on the door.

"Ms. Sternkamp! Are you in there?" She was answered by a succession of pounding gunshots.

_"Go in!"_ Skinner shouted and hit the door with Mulder, shattering it inward, and piling through, guns drawn.

_"Freeze FBI!"_

The light came from the small desk lamp clipped to the headboard, muted by the smoke rising from the girl's Army .45 automatic. She pointed the smoking barrel at the pummeled, inert body slumped on the floor in a rapidly expanding puddle of his own blood, and stared down at it, her tear-streaks catching the yellow light.

"Are you all right?" Skinner asked, thawing from his combat posture. The girl nodded furiously. "He put a knife to my throat. Told me about all the things he was going to do to me...it made me sick..."

"He was a sick man," Mulder mumbled as he stepped over to Setzer's body and examined it. The man's eyes stared glassy and unblinking at nothing. Mulder holstered his pistol and walked over to the girl. She looked up at him with trust and gratitude as he gently plucked the warm, heavy pistol from her fingers.

"Where'd you get the gun?" Skinner asked as he dialed his cellular phone.

"Under my pillow."

"I meant before that."

"My dad," she said simply. "He's career military. He gave it to me when I joined ROTC."   


23

"What the hell happened?"

The hotel door was broken and swinging limply. They went in guns drawn, but whoever had broken in and professionally dispatched the two men with gunshot wounds to the face had long since gone. "Covering their tracks," Skinner said knowingly, unsurprised. "I'll call the DPD and tell them we need them another meat wagon."

Mulder put his gun away and trudged out of the blood-lashed room, tired of killing, tired of death. He staggered out into the cool night and sat heavily on the concrete stoop. He twined his fingers into his hair.

"Maybe tomorrow we can go to the Air Force Museum," he said, exhaustedly. "Get some astronaut ice cream and erasers shaped like Stealth fighters..."

"How are you?" Scully asked, sitting beside him.

Mulder shut his eyes and shook his hed. "I was scared," he admitted. "I wondered for a while..."

Scully's hands gently pulled his cheek to her shoulder. "I never did."   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



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